The founder of Pushcart Press and the Lead Pencil Club teams up here with the author of The Writer's Quotation Book and The Writer's Home Companion to present more than 600 thoughts on writers, readers, and the book as printed object, quoted from hundreds of book lovers. "A room without books is a body without a soul," said Cicero, while William Gladstone noted, "If you go into a room filled with books, even without taking them down from their shelves, they seem to speak to you, to welcome you." And Winston Churchill expressed the love of books even more personally: "If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them.... Let them be your friends."